Driver fires gun at pickup, runs out of gas

January 04, 2009

Authorities have charged a driver they suspect fired shots at another vehicle this morning on U.S. Interstate 57, then abandoned his car when it ran out of gas and walked to a house in Midlothian.The shooting occurred at about 3 a.m. today on I-57 south of 167th Street in southern Cook County. Two men, ages 21 and 19, headed to work in a pickup truck had just exited U.S. Interstate 80 and were headed north when a black Pontiac sedan pulled along their passenger side.

"At some point they heard a sound and thought that the individual [in the sedan] had thrown something at them," said Illinois State Police Master Sgt. Anthony Hoop. Actually, the other driver had leaned out the window and fired several shots at the pickup with a handgun, Hoop said.

The Pontiac then exited at 167th Street and the two men in the pickup, who were unhurt, called police. State troopers located the sedan soon after, abandoned on 167th Street just past the off-ramp from the highway.

The driver "ran out of gas," Hoop said, "and just left the vehicle there."

Officers traced the car's registration to a house in the 14900 block of Keeler Avenue in Midlothian, about 2 1/2 miles north of the car. At about 4 a.m., they arrived at the address, Hoop said, and while they were speaking with the home's residents they saw the suspect walking in a hallway.

The man, identified as Oscar Villarreal-Gomez, 30, was arrested and a handgun recovered, along with shell casings from the Pontiac, Hoop said. Police found a bullet hole in the right-side bed of the pickup truck.

Villarreal-Gomez, of the 300 block of Eaton Avenue in Romeoville, was charged with two counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm at an occupied vehicle and another count of unlawful use of a weapon.

Asked by police why he fired on the other vehicle, he replied that he was "highly intoxicated," Hoop said. "He gave an indication that these guys were messing with him."